


Everyone is drawn to his own passion (Trahit sua quemque voluptas)

by diei_elf



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: AU, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Dispensary, M/M, Manipulation, Memories, Psychological Trauma, Psychologists / Psychoanalysts, before the start of season 1, drug references, klaus dies temporarily, references to rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28813677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diei_elf/pseuds/diei_elf
Summary: About how events that happened in the distant past affect all of our future life.OR: Klaus is just released from a drug treatment facility when he goes there again, but this time on purpose, because it's Christmas, it's snowing outside, and the guy who Klaus was staying with almost kills him in a fit of unsober jealousy. He simply has nowhere else to go. No home, no friends, no money, and no loving family. But... With a new psychologist, Dave Katz, who genuinely wants to help.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz, Klaus Hargreeves/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Everyone is drawn to his own passion (Trahit sua quemque voluptas)

**Author's Note:**

> the events take place BEFORE the events of seasons 1 and 2, but there may be some random minor spoilers (?), since I've watched both seasons and may take something from there ~  
> musical inspiration:  
> I Want to Get Drunk - Ostap Parfyonov / https://youtu.be/BR83Exs-bd4  
> Woke Up in the Dark - GONE.Fludd / https://youtu.be/lobpojTgAe4  
> Young - LIZER / https://youtu.be/ssrqVrKBZn8  
> GONE.Fludd - SUGAR MAN / https://youtu.be/B_D-rdYYvc8  
> LIZER - Pack of Cigarettes / https://youtu.be/c_tSDJD1Jf8
> 
> !!! English is not my native language, I just tried to translate my work from Russian into English, and there may be many errors in the text (sorry) // in Russian: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27985320

/The Present, 2017/

So this little act of showing endurance and patience for the sake of Diego, who is the only one who can still tolerate and more or less love him, albeit in his own way, as sharp and sharp as the knives he throws so aptly at his targets, is over, and Klaus is released back into the world, just as they release recovered birds back into their Savannah. But if, in the case of the bird, being released back into the wild does not confront such problems as "psychological trauma" there, Klaus is forced to live with them. At the junkie center, though it's hard physically, with all the withdrawals and body cleansing, it's easy mentally. At the center, they're all like children in the garden. They are taken care of, they wipe their vomit off the floor without saying a word, they are fed three times a day, walked almost by the hand, and, of course, read fairy tales - in group therapy. When they say that everything can be changed in their hands. Bullshit. Klaus is sure that if he couldn't influence what happens in his life before, there's no point in trying now. He's got twisted hands. He thinks of one thing and gets another. Better to not even bother then.

But it's a shame for Diego to quit and these pathetic attempts to quit. Klaus knows that sobriety for life is not about him. It's nonsense. He won't be able to live a day sober. The ghosts, both the ones growling in the corner (living ghosts, bitch!) and the ones quietly scratching around in his head, will just eat him up faster than, the same coke or acid. It didn't get to heroin. But this strain is always around. Someday it will be the norm, too. Someday. When Diego, for example, turns his back on him and Ben goes off to his light there. It's long overdue for him. In fact, they should have been long overdue... But somehow they're still, what the hell, around.

But on Diego's account, Klaus may already be beginning to question whether or not he's happy. The older (they're actually the same age, but who cares if they've always had a division between older and younger in the company) brother was particularly unhappy the last time he had to take his junkie brother to the drug treatment center for the hundredth time, if not more, to get cleaned up and get himself cleaned up. The "holy resuscitation," as Klaus mentally called it, was paying off. It got better. For a minute, it even felt great and made me want to go smell the flowers in the park and enjoy the sunshine. But that passed as soon as Klaus stepped outside, descended the stairs, which were slippery from the recent snowfall, and slipped, grasping the banister in an attempt not to fall. His foot slipped forward, and the other went off somewhere to the side, just in time for the pile of dog shit that lay there. So much for flowers. What flowers in December, asshole?

That last one wasn't his voice anymore. It was Ben's voice. His tame talking ghost. They'd grown up together, even though Ben had nothing to grow physically, but he still hadn't learned how to make jokes when he wasn't a blood relative. He's kind of smart, though. I don't know why, by the way. It's unlikely that someone who spends literally all his time around someone like Klaus could grow up to be smart. But Ben could. Fuck, Reginald would have been glad. But dick, when Klaus informs this type that Ben is still partially here. After Klaus ran away from home at nineteen, he never spoke to old Reggie again. Nauseous... from his smoke-soaked tobacco pipe mustache.

"Snowdrops," Klaus answered, wiping the brown consistency on the asphalt, which was covered with a thin layer of snow that was already beginning to turn black from the fumes of passing cars. The skin on his bony hands turned red in the cold, and Klaus, exhaling a cloud of white steam, raised his head, finally taking his eyes off the turd.

Winter. Already Winter. It had been December then, too, when he'd walked into the center, but it was still a warm December. And now it was almost... what is this place where those cute dumb penguins live? He forgot. Trouble. It's hard to think sober.

"Snowdrops are in the spring," Ben said, hiding his hands in his pockets, though the ghostly bastard's hands are incapable of freezing (he's not sensitive).

"Don't get smart," Klaus grabbed the snow from the thick stone railing and threw it at Ben. The white mass, of course, flew past the ghost and crashed into whoever was walking by. A woman in a sweat-stained old woman's sheepskin coat glanced viciously in Klaus's direction and said something to herself under her long, hunchbacked nose. What a witch. Cursed?

"How long have you been afraid of curses?" Still looking in the direction of the departing and disappearing into the crowd of passersby, Ben asked. Klaus rarely answered him at the center, as he often couldn't hear anything, either from the pain all over his body, or from the sedatives they gave him, or he was just sleeping, and as a result, Ben got terribly bored of just talking about nothing. No one sees him but Klaus, so there's no one else to talk to. With the other ghosts, Ben has never tried to talk. They scare him just as much as Klaus does.

"Did you fucking learn to read minds while I was on vacation?" Klaus shrank back from the wind, not strong but piercing, and zipped up the jacket Diego had unearthed (or maybe bought) for him. When his body, with an unhealthily minimal layer of fat, was more or less used to the temperature change and had recovered from the culture shock, Klaus moved in the opposite direction from where the old woman had gone. He had nowhere else to go but to Gero. To that Gero's salesman, who pushes and does not accept. Or rather, he does, but not that. Herman, as his name really is, smokes. And not cigarettes.

Ben says it's a rotten idea to live with someone who smokes pot twenty-four hours a day. Hero does seem like a very inadequate type sometimes. And talks shit about who knows what. But Klaus is no better. So, that'll do. Pretending to have something, Klaus can live with this future retard until he finds a better option than a dumpster. He may sometimes feel like he's found himself in a dumpster, but he's not going to live on it just yet. The rats that might eat a hole in him when he's down terrifies him...

"No, I'm sorry, but I still don't understand what's going on in your head," Ben trailed off silently and without a trace. "It's just that you were talking out loud. I haven't lost the ability to hear yet." 

"Good for you," Klaus said. As he walked past the window of some strange clothing store, Klaus took a knitted multicolored hat with long ears off a mannequin's head and put it on his own head. It's cold. Damn, it's very cold.

Ben looked around to see if the salesman had run out. No. Good.

"Are you going to go to him again?". You could hear the sound of Ben's hopes being dashed.

"Do you have any other options where I can go other than to him?" 

"Diego's. He'll let us in." 

"I don't think so. I got him. That was very clear the last time I saw him." 

"He's not you. Diego has long since forgotten," Ben was insistent. Either option seemed better than going back to Herman's apartment. This guy made Ben want to go out the window. Klaus didn't belong around that kind of guy. Also, Ben was scared at night. Because Gero smokes even more at this time than he does during the day. He mostly sleeps during the day. But at night, he's active. Like a rat. A rabid, stupid, stinking rat.

Ben looked at Klaus. It was clear from his eyes that his brother was somewhere far away... Maybe Klaus wasn't haunted by the dead when he wasn't sober, but he continued to be haunted by ghosts. Ghosts of the past. The same scary, loud ones. It's from them that Klaus, Ben thinks, is trying to escape, for the most part. For the ghosts that come sometimes to disturb Klaus's peace, asking for help, are not so scary. You can get used to them. You can ignore them, and then they go away on their own. Ben could do it. Klaus can do it. He's not weaker than him. But... only Klaus doesn't want to believe that. And Ben is so pissed off! His brother can take matters into his own hands, can get rid of the things that are killing him, but instead he says he can't do anything, that it's all out of his hands. Klaus is just making excuses... But Ben can't just take it and tell it like it is to Klaus' face. Not after what they've been through together. Sometimes Ben can't bring himself to stop telling himself that Klaus has a right to be offended and react the way he reacts. But damn...how infuriating is that.

"Diego and forgot? You obviously don't know our brother very well, Ben, he's a vindictive bitch. It'll be good if he cools off by spring."

"I bet you fifty bucks that if he still hasn't cooled off, he will by the end of the week. Diego will definitely want to know how you're doing, and he'll catch you in an alley somewhere, sometime on Friday. Yeah, Friday."

Klaus laughed. But inside, it even became a little hurtful from his complete certainty that it wasn't going to happen. Ben sees a picture of the past. Maybe when they were ten years old, they were all for each other (except for quiet Vanya, of course, who'd been an outcast since she was a baby), but that's all changed now. They're all individuals now, living their own lives. There are no more superheroes, no more fans and flashy posters. There are just bills, the eternal question of "where to get money" (or dope, to each his own), cheating, loneliness and so on down the list. Ben hasn't touched on all that. And maybe that's sometimes even a good thing. Ben's innocence is endearing. A cute little samoyed puppy. Such a cloud of goodness and piety. Common sense with a sprinkling of the honor and dignity Reggie was so pampered for.

"You don't even have any money," Klaus waved his hand. The girl with the golden braids who was walking toward me looked at Klaus fearfully, but she didn't turn and walked past him. She smelled deliciously of cookies and milk. So homely...

"I bet an imaginary fifty," Ben corrected himself with a frown.

"And I'll buy my food with imaginary pennies, too?" Klaus raised his eyebrows and then smiled when Ben finally shut up. Not for long. But still. It's not often that Klaus gets to have the last word. Usually Ben has the last phrase. It's nice to win at least once in a while...

******

/Past, Klaus - 15 years/

After Fifth left and Ben died, the atmosphere in the house changed. It was as if Reginald had become disillusioned with them and abandoned his attempts to mold them into something worthwhile. There was a time when training was completely gone, just no schedule, no "Father" who said firmly "tomorrow at seven, no tardiness." And it was so wonderful. Klaus hated training. He hated his dumb, no-man's strength. But not all the guys their bodies were happy about the change. Luther, and with him Diego, went to his father and said something to him. And the next day training resumed.

Klaus wanted to tear his hair out. Why the hell did those two take and break everything? Who did Luther want to prove he was cool to? His dad? He didn't give a damn about any of them. Is Luther really that blind? Reginald is a psycho, sadistic, rich weirdo who uses them for his own good. But nothing more. What's Luther up to? And Diego? The jerk just likes to bicker with Luther. Klaus is sure Diego flew into Reginald's with Luther just to piss Luther off. It's childish.

"This is idiotic. I hate this," Klaus said, sitting in the attic at night on the window sill of the open window. The wind was fluttering his curly hair slightly, slicked forward, and his ears were already red from the cold. But Klaus still couldn't settle down. He smoked one cheap cigarette after another, but they had little effect, and that only made him angrier than he already was. He was itching inside, as if he had eaten too many tangerines. And he was allergic to them. He wanted to itch. But from the inside. I scratched myself inside to make myself feel better.

Ben sat on the wooden floor next to me and was silent. He is often silent. He just observes and listens to Klaus. Sometimes Klaus wondered what was going on in Ben's head, but he didn't want to dive too deeply into those thoughts. Ben is dead, after all. It must be creepy to realize that you died young, so you didn't go to heaven...or wherever they go, but are stuck here with a brother who's using you for his own purposes. Not thinking on fire, either. I'm surprised Ben is still so calm. Klaus would have gone crazy a long time ago. Being confined is horrible. And Ben is confined around the clock.

"Oh, fuck it," Klaus threw the butt back with force, it ricocheted off the roof and fell to the ground between the flowerbeds, "I'm not going to sign up for this. If they want to be happy in front of him, let them. They can lick him till they're old, get his praise. I don't care what he thinks of me. When I'm 18, I'll go far away. And before I do, I'll steal a couple of pictures. The old man's made too much money off of us already...

Klaus, who was trembling as Ben noticed, got off the windowsill and went to the door leading from the attic downstairs. We must be quiet, for everyone is already asleep. For tomorrow morning my father has announced practice. But Klaus is awake. And he is disgusted that ten minutes ago he thought that if he didn't go to bed he wouldn't wake up in time in the morning and get it from Reginald. Now he'd already decided he wasn't going anywhere in the morning. But...if he just pretends to oversleep, it won't be effective. Reginald would just pour water on him and then give him a penalty. Or throw him down the stairs sleepy. He might. So... it's better to just go somewhere else. Klaus has done that before, so it's not that scary. He decides what to do with his life. And he certainly doesn't want to waste his youth running around outside, sparring, and sitting among ghosts for hours. He'd rather get stoned and die than that!

"Klaus..." he called softly to Ben, who was still sitting by the window. But Klaus didn't even turn around. When he left, Ben sighed, then his silhouette flickered, alerting the dust mites that Ben was gone. Gone to his ghostly world that Klaus hates so much. Or fears. But then why did he pull him from that stream? If he's so afraid of his powers. The ghosts. Why use his powers so easily and bind one ghost, albeit a brother?

So many questions and so few answers. The world is so complicated. Back then, when they lived by their father's schedule and played heroes, it was so much easier. No wonder Luther wants to go back to that. Ben wants to, too. Sometimes he wants a lot of things.

******

When he reached the dysfunctional neighborhood in which Gero lived on foot, on his beloved two, Ben activated himself and began to persuade him to go again instead of Gero to Diego's. Ben was like his conscience sometimes. Said the right thing to do. But this time Klaus was undeterred. Because the words that Diego then said tiredly in the car as he drove him to the rehab were all too memorable to Klaus, recorded as if on a video camera, but only on a video camera in his head.

"You'd better have the zeal with which you're trying to kill yourself, raring to better yourself."

It doesn't seem to be anything like that. It's just the truth. He's killing himself with drugs, with a way of life. Diego's right. But it still hurts. Probably even more from the intonation. The way Diego said it hit a nerve. It made him pull away and stay away. Diego had lost faith in him. Tired of him. He was nothing but trouble for Diego. He's a pain in the ass. A hemorrhoid that has grown too big. In addition to screwing up his own life by letting it go to waste, he was screwing up his brother's life, too. Diego almost got fired from his job because of it.

It probably would have been more logical to just get out of the rehab and pull myself together and be a better person, just like Diego wants me to be. But Klaus doesn't want to change. He doesn't want to be right. He doesn't want a stable job, a loving pussy-mouse, kids, and all these things Diego appreciates. Klaus isn't like that. He's a junkie who doesn't know why he's still living. It's just fun to live. And Ben's kind of still here. I don't want to die before him. Not before... the formalities. Too complicated. Anyway, it's just too soon to die. Klaus doesn't want to. But to go to death, if it's fun and it's what he knows how to do, he will do. For it is him. A mass molded from shiny shards. He's a disco ball. Spinning, glittering, and inside the shit knows what, and he's made of, like, separate pieces... he's always had a problem with comparisons.

There was a sense of "extra eyes" and Klaus, who had been under water for a minute or two, ducked out of the tub, brushed his hair out of his face and looked toward the doorway. There stood Hero. From his red eyes and twitching leg, Klaus knew he'd already smoked. If not something else. When Klaus arrived, Gero was in the kitchen, and I think he could hear the clinking of bottles. Klaus didn't bother to check, he went straight to the bathroom. He missed her so much. There were no baths in the center. Only showers with a time limit of ten minutes per person, for there was a line of people who wanted to bathe up to the first floor.

Ben wasn't around; he hadn't shown up since he'd left when Klaus came in the house. He was angry.

"Where have you been? You were at his place, weren't you? At that son of a bitch James's, huh?" Gero spoke. Klaus didn't immediately like where that might lead. He turned away from the man and pulled the foam across the water surface toward him. The water was still warm, not having had time to cool to cold or icy.

Hero, on the other hand, to Klaus's surprise, stepped into the bathroom. He usually appreciated the distance. And, if Klaus marked it, he respected it. But this time was different. The door was ajar, and Hero took it as a call to action. Klaus felt a slight panic. Getting punched in the face by someone twice your size, that kind of thing. Not that Klaus was frightened by the pain or the prospect of being humiliated or killed, but in the ten minutes he'd been basking in the water, he'd had time to think about what he wanted to do next, and suddenly realized that, for some reason, he wanted to at least try to hold his temper a little. No, not to quit dope and Hero, but just, at least to begin with, to use not so much, and not let others use so much. It seemed to Klaus that if he took care of himself even a little bit, he would be able to please Diego that way and thank him for all his countless efforts. Klaus feared that Diego would become frustrated with himself again, realize that his attempts were pointless, and stop trying. Klaus couldn't fix himself, he was too full of shit, but he could dust his eyes, embellish a little here, a little there, and, all in all, everything would be fine. Diego will be calm again.

"How is he better than me? Well? How?". He grasped Klaus's chin, and Klaus smelled grass and alcohol from the other man's hands and clothes. Sweet and bitter. Just like life itself. Nauseating. Nasty. But so fucking appealing all the same. It's a terrific abomination that plays on contrasts. What you can't say about Gero himself. A man from the bottom, materially as well as outwardly. Not handsome, not Klaus' type. Nothing attractive, nothing to uncover. But Gero has an authority among the suppliers. He gives him dope for free, well, how free... for cohabitation. And the cohabitation itself. The apartment isn't the best, but it's better than being on a bench or in a shelter, like a dog slouching.

Ben says there's no point in staying with Hero. But there are so many meanings.

"I don't know who you're asking," Klaus said cautiously, and tried to break free. Not quickly, not abruptly, to move away easily so as not to provoke, because the dude is inadequate as it is right now. "Look, go sleep it off. You need to sober up a little bit, and then we'll talk..."

Hero's hands suddenly descended on Klaus's neck, and physical superiority played a part. Klaus felt the water go into his lungs (a familiar feeling) before Hero had even lowered him underwater, and his lungs tried to draw oxygen one last time, but too late. The warm soapy water went down his throat and went into his stomach on the first breath, but on the second breath that followed, the trick didn't work and the water went into his lungs. It didn't feel good. It hurt. Normally, when Klaus tries to drown himself, a reflex kicks in and he dives out, but now he couldn't dive out. He was being held by a death grip underwater. They were killing him. For something he didn't do. Injustice upon injustice, failure after failure.

Hero let him go after five minutes. Klaus's reflex didn't work. His body remained underwater, his eyes still open, staring at the cracked ceiling where the cockroaches had trampled their way to the vent from the window.

"Klaus? Hell, no, no, me. It wasn't me. I didn't do anything. That's right. I don't remember. I just came by to ask," Gero got up off the floor and spoke to Klaus, as if Fifth had swung back five minutes and was now replaying the situation, "but I see you're busy. Busy. Busy... let me wait for you there..."

Gero's heart beat even faster. Unsteady, frantic. His eyes were like two scrambled eggs in a frying pan, the same two white spots with a yellow circle in the center. And the reddened vessels in the whites of his eyes were like the cracked surface of a frying pan.

"I'll ask you later. Yes, later."

Hero left the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He left for the kitchen, where there was a white trail of substance on a square table with a tablecloth black with dirt. Dropping his hairy butt onto the stool, Hero ran his nose along the path, then lit another cigar. Two minutes later he was laughing again, pinching the blond hair on his temples so that it came out in tufts and fell to the floor like torn off spider legs.

******

"This is a very bad idea."

Ben stood next to him, arms crossed, while Klaus, pulling out a stepladder from nowhere, drew satanic horns and eyes with Ali's red lipstick on Reginald.

"He'll kill you, Klaus, when he sees this," Ben tried again to sober his sobering brother with at least words (all he has). Soon it will be morning. Soon Reginald will be down here. Shit. Well, Klaus, what are you doing? Stupid suicide. Although, not to admit that the horns fit Reginald perfectly, you just can't. They're like family on his head.

"Let him try to explain my death to the police later," Klaus said defiantly, and as he finished, he wanted to go down the stairs, but the voice behind him rang out fearfully, like lightning striking a meter away on a rocky mountain surface:

"What is this! Not allowed, number four! Immediately..."

Klaus stumbled, his foot missed the step and he began to fall backwards, but he grasped the ladder tightly with his hands and eventually pulled it behind him. Together they began to fall askew, toward the table where Reginald's expensive gilded vase stood. The ladder smashed it as it met the table, and Klaus fell to the floor beneath the ladder and banged the back of his head on the marble floor. What happened next, Klaus could not remember, for the lights were abruptly turned off. And he didn't wake up until twenty minutes later in the infirmary when they shoved a smelly cotton wad under his nose. Unfortunately, their non-biological robot mother who resuscitated him couldn't save him from the wrath of their non-biological monster father.

******

There was no absorbent cotton this time, but he came back to life on his own, just like the last time.

Klaus sat up abruptly in the cold water, which made his skin turn blue, and water gushed from his mouth. Klaus coughed and grabbed the rim of the tub, resting his heels on the ceramic bottom. When all the water was out of his lungs, all of it seemed to be out... he rubbed his eyes and saw a very angry Ben in front by the wall. He was looking at Klaus with two black coals, and Klaus only sighed softly. His lungs ached. And his head. But he was alive. Yes... that's the achievement. He can't die. Not news to him. Not news to Ben. But damn, what a ghost this ghost is. Klaus dies and Ben worries.

"Can you explain?" Ben asked firmly. Now Klaus was as afraid of him as Diego was of him when he threw his knives at him, or of Reginald when he called him number four.

"Right now?" Hanging over the edge, Klaus asked hoarsely. His throat itched like he'd been yelling at a concert all night, or like he'd been paying back debts in kind all night...

"No." Ben pushed himself off the wall. "Now get out of here. You can explain later."

Klaus gathered all his strength and climbed out of the tub, squeezing into his clothes, wiping himself with them first to keep the water from running down at least his chest and arms. The snow outside began to pile up harder, out of spite.

"Yes, Boss..."

"God..." Ben sighed.

"He ain't here. He hardly, you know, looks in places like this. Hardly ever hears ghosts, either," Klaus joked, trying to ease the nervous tension. His own, for the most part. And Ben's, too.

"God," Ben repeated, just a little louder. "Give me the strength to take this."

"Aren't you going to ask for me?"

"Cover up, Klaus."

"What didn't you see?"

******

"I hate you so much," Klaus said quietly, thinking that Reginald, that wolf in the sheep's wool coat, paparazzi favorite, genius, et cetera, would not hear him. Klaus fidgeted in his chair and froze, looking away as Reginald turned toward him with a smoking pipe in his hand, turning away from the bookshelf and fixing his gaze on him. Klaus was afraid to look the man in the eye. Though he convinced himself that he wasn't afraid of Reginald. He was. They're all afraid.

"And what am I supposed to do with you..." Reggie asked himself, blowing off steam, and then walked over to the oak table and sat down at it, like a headmaster. Important, possessive. Well, and that's right. This house, this building, is Reginald's property. And as long as they're here, they, the children, are his property, too. But Klaus doesn't want to be Reginald's property. Somebody else's, maybe, but not his.

"You know about checks and balances, number four?" Reginald asked, his voice like a fishing rod cast into the distance. But what Reggie was trying to catch, Klaus didn't understand. He thought Reginald would just lecture him first, then tell him what extra for the vase and disobedience he'd given him, and then, either he'd just let him go, or take him to the mausoleum until morning, and it would be over. But that's not the scenario it went down at all. A scenario that even a badass like Klaus couldn't have imagined.

Reginald had somehow changed too quickly. From stern and stolid as a candlestick, he suddenly softened, blurred in his chair, blew smoke differently from his mouth. Klaus even tore his gaze away from the wall and turned it to Reginald. He even looked Reggie in the eyes. Those were different. But... something wasn't right.

Klaus regretted forbidding Ben to go with him. Maybe Ben would have given him some smart ideas. The little Asian man was always good at reading people. He was a killer scanner. He should be a lie detector, not lying in a coffin. That's a dumb joke. But Klaus can't make funny jokes when he's excited, when he's sober. And he is sober, as if it were bad luck. He had run out of cognac two days before and had no time to smoke cigarettes, because he was so busy with the painting. What a bloody idea. He should have done it at night.

"You don't know," Reginald answered for him, and then tilted his head slightly, surveying his gaze. Klaus frowned. Is there something wrong with his face? "Just so you understand, I'll help you with the answer. The system of checks and balances assumes that power will not be concentrated in one hand, on one side alone, but will be distributed equally. And, you, I see, are overplaying your hand, number four, assuming that you have any power at all in this place..."

Klaus bit the inside of his cheek and tensed up. Hell, it really would have been easier morally with Ben. Next time, he'll take that pain in the ass with him. Let him listen, there's no one to tell him what he found out anyway. The secret won't go away.

"I don't..."

"Well, well, you've said your piece," the man interrupted him, "with your behavior. I'll do the talking now, and you listen. Be good to you."

Reginald stepped forward sharply, and his tone jumped with his body. That enemy of the people dissolved, and the amateur jeweler turned on. He asked, as if it really mattered:

"Remind me again, number four, how tall are you?"

Klaus wrinkled his nose, but was too disintegrated to think of anything, so he answered:

"One hundred and seventy-two... Why?"

"And the weight?"

"I don't know. Maybe sixty-three..." 

"Fine," Reginald leaned back in his chair. "It would suit him."

"Him?" Klaus asked him again.

Reggie smiled broadly, and Claus finally got the full meaning of what was being discussed. It was nauseating and scary and painful.

"My good old buddy. You see, Klaus..." he called him that for the first time in his life, "since you've decided you're old enough, and since you're so eager to have power in this house, I'll give you what you want. I have a business. Another one, another one that nobody knows about. Call it what you want, body trade, prostitution, whatever else you can think of ... Now you're in it. I'll make arrangements with the client, give you a place, let you go out for the night, and in return you'll keep quiet and work hard."

"I'm not going to," Klaus snapped out of his seat and headed for the door. Wow, that's something! Now that's... too bad he didn't have a tape recorder. Luthor could demand proof. In fact, no one would believe him without it, he could feel it now, he couldn't believe his own ears. But...

"Then I'll have to ask Vanya for this favor," Reginald threw in calmly. And the door never opened. Klaus's hand fell along his body, and his ears perked up.

"Little Vanya, who's so eager to participate anywhere, can't refuse me if I ask her to. And, you know, I don't even have to ask-I can command it. The others are still just as scared of me so far, Klaus. Face it, break down. You don't mean anything. No, sure, you can go tell your brothers and sisters everything, but will they believe you? How often do they even listen to you?"

My head hurt so much. His heart was pounding fast. He seemed to understand everything, but he couldn't digest it. Shit, a teenager at fifteen shouldn't be thinking about something like that at all! He doesn't know what to do in a situation like this. They don't go through that in class. They fucking read Shakespeare and learn German. There's no way that's going to help him now.

"Don't touch Vanya. She didn't do anything."

"I know. But you did. And you decide who pays for the mistake. You or her."

Reginald wrapped his lips around the mouthpiece, took a drag, and as he exhaled a light gray smoke that smelled pleasantly of glowing premium tobacco, Klaus, whose eyes were wet and his palms sweaty, replied:

"All right. I agree."

You know, in the animal world, when a cub grows up, the parent ceases to be exposed to parental urges, and may begin to feel aggressive urges toward his own cub, seeing him as nothing more than a competitor. And even though they were human, Reginald was always like an old aggressive lion, overprotective of his territory.

The door closed behind Klaus, and Reginald opened the first drawer of his desk, taking out a sheet of letter paper and a pen. He wrote a nice letter to his buddy, folded it, and then called Pogo to take it to the right address. Mr. Anonymous would be happy with the latest news; he had just wondered a long time ago if Mr. Reginald had any more interesting merchandise.

******

"You have other options..." Ben followed, still leaving no trace behind him. Sometimes Klaus doubts whether Ben is real or a figment of his imagination. An imaginary brother friend.

"Yeah, a thousand," Klaus sarcastically threw. His gait was crooked, and he was about to fall into a snowdrift. Ben was worried that he might freeze to death and go back to the morgue. And if he went to the morgue, it would be the second time he was officially dead. This might raise questions for those who would accept Klaus' corpse, and problems might arise. What if they accuse Klaus of forging documents and faking his death for his own benefit? What kind of crazy ideas do people have these days?

"So pick one out of the thousand. The rehab center isn't the only place you're welcome. They're not expecting you at all, Klaus. They must have had enough of you by now."

"Even got them," Klaus said and hiccupped. Then a lump came to his throat and he got dizzy. Klaus crouched, and then sat down on his knees, the snow crumbling beneath him.

Klaus took the snow in his palms, held it to his face, and tasted the snow that had just fallen. It was tasteless. Of course it was. My nipples had burned on my tongue a long time ago. So much crap to drink.

Sighing disappointedly, because he expected the snow to taste magical, New Year's Eve, not empty, with just a hint of dirt, Klaus slowly poured the snow back. Snowflakes met snowflakes, the family united. Yay!

The lump came up in his throat again, and Klaus threw up on the snowflake family. Ben turned away, but he wasn't lost. You couldn't scare him off like that anymore. Not even his naked ass, not even Klaus's dead body, not even his waste. What Ben's ghostly eyes haven't seen.

"Why do you only hear what you're comfortable hearing out of everything you're told?" Ben crossed his arms and watched as the man across the street from them walked with his son by the hand, their path illuminated by street lamp posts. And in the light of those lampposts, the snowflakes glittered so beautifully. I think Ben had heard that no two snowflakes are alike. That all the ones that fall are different in some way. It's so... wow. It doesn't seem real.

Klaus didn't answer, and Ben turned to him, but he was already lying unconscious in the snow.

"Again."

A police car drove by, but on the other side, and Ben could already see Klaus being taken to the station, sampled, taken to the rehab... A broken record. But then the car drove away and disappeared around the corner, never noticing the body lying quietly in the snow near his vomit.

"Hey, are you all right...?"

Ben turned to Klaus again. Some strange man crouched beside him and tried to wake him up, to which Klaus only muttered something inaudible.

The stranger silently pondered something in his head, tried again to wake Claus, and then took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed someone.

"Hello, April? Hi. Send me the car, please. There seems to be a patient here. We're outside the club on the corner..."

Ben stared intently into the stranger's eyes, trying to figure out if he was a friend or foe. After all these years, Ben already sees everyone as a threat, but now it's hard for him to see that even if he wanted to. You can always tell by the eyes what kind of person a person is about. And you can tell by this guy's eyes that he's definitely a far cry from those who treated Klaus like a thing. Even the way this guy carefully and gently picked Klaus up off the ground and put him in the car spoke volumes. This is a good man. One of the few who doesn't walk by when someone needs help.

******

Klaus would have believed it was all a dream if he hadn't felt his insides turning over inside him, his heart pounding fast, his ears popping, everything clenching with fear. In his dreams he can't smell things, but now he feels them. They are mottled, burning, hovering, and flying as far inside as any tobacco smoke can't. The lack of air in this dark club makes it so bad. It feels like it's going to fall... How all the colors are mottled. Red. Dangerous. Blue. Cold. Yellow. Crazy. Pink. Sex. Green. Permission to act.

But he didn't allow it. Or maybe he did. Maybe he allowed it when he stood up for Vanya. But how could he not stand up for her, for this low, quiet, gray and defenseless Ivana? She would not have stood for it.

But can he himself stand it? Or is he playing the hero without being one?

"Careful," the half-naked girl with lush breasts, covered by two stickers, almost crashed into Klaus with the tray in his hand, on which there were half-empty glasses, and the man, who was three heads taller than Klaus, blocked her way with his hand, keeping Klaus from being hit. Keeping him safe. Funny. But Klaus didn't feel like a guy on a date, but a commodity he just didn't want to spoil before his time. This would be his first time. He doesn't even know how it's going to go down technically. Whether it will hurt. But scary for sure. He's scared. I think he's starting to cry again. He can't. In the car in which they drove here, this Mister had already made it clear that he didn't like tears and didn't want to see them. He then generously offered Klaus some colored vitamins in a clear baggie. Klaus took the bag, but did not open it. Because it's too much? Although the concept of too much was now shifting. There had been a time when smoking and drinking had seemed too much to him, but now it was ridiculous. Smoking was like drinking water. It's okay. That's the way it's supposed to be.

"S-sorry," the lady squeaked, and turned around. They moved on. They walked down the hall, then through a door, then down a narrow long corridor with the same bright and colorful, neon lighting. The doors were closed, but one was open ahead. That's where they were going, Klaus realized. And Klaus also heard the lock click behind him. The door to that hallway was opened by a man whose name he never knew, Reginald only called him buddy, client, and acquaintance, with a key card. And the door must have opened the same way from the inside. There might be a chance, though?

Fifteen-year-old Klaus turned around. The door was closed. It was too dark. He couldn't see if there was a card lock, which was what the outside of the door was. Meanwhile, they were all the closer to their room for the night. Must have been expensive. I wonder how much Reginald got out of it. If only someone would find out what he was doing. But who would believe it.

They stopped. Ben hadn't been around all this time. And Klaus hadn't called him either. Ben asked what Reginald had said, what had happened, but Klaus was silent. All he said was that he and his father had agreed on something, and that he would be spending the night away from home. What his father had told the others about why he wouldn't be home tonight, Klaus didn't know. Maybe it was nothing. After all, when Reginald had locked him in the mausoleum, no one had noticed his absence at night, either. Not even Ben. He only found out when Klaus came to pour his heart out to him.

They came in. The man, who wore an expensive black shirt, jeans, and a black leather jacket, and also a red scarf, locked the door with the same card, and, leaving it with him, said, pointing to the big bed:

"Have a seat, get ready. I'm going to take a shower."

Klaus waited until the man went into the bathroom, which was separated from the room by a transparent wall, and sat down on the bed. The man began to undress, pulled off his scarf, hung it on a gold loop, then began to undo the buttons, then took off his jeans, his underwear. Klaus saw that naked ass and could not, even sitting on the bed where he was about to be fucked like some highway whore, imagine that he was about to be... fucked like some highway whore.

Klaus covered his face with his hands and fell on his back. A bag fell out of his breast pocket, and he picked it up, twirling it in his hands. He didn't know exactly what it was. Some kind of acid. He doesn't figure it out. And he doesn't want to. But he thinks it will make it easier. Maybe this way he won't even remember later. He wishes he didn't remember. He wants to forget. He wants to forget not just today, but his entire childhood. He wants to start over. But he can't do that.

"What are you doing?" Ben appeared so suddenly. Klaus had forgotten all about him. I had to postpone making an uncomplicated decision.

"Trying to go to the astral. I used to be able to."

"Who's that?!" Ben was dumbfounded by a naked old man rubbing his dick in the shower with velvet soap.

"Is that what your eyes are for, Ben? It's a man," Klaus tried.

"What is he doing here? What are you doing here? What are you going to do? Klaus, you said you went to help Dad... What does that mean?"

Klaus didn't want to talk. He didn't know how to say it. It's easier to avoid. He'll just do what they want him to do, and then he'll forget it like a bad dream and go on with his life.

"Just go to bed, Ben." Said Klaus, and then put a bright blue, like his orientation, vitamin in his mouth. Ben saw it. He immediately asked:

"What did you take? Klaus?"

But Klaus didn't hear. He closed his eyes. His breathing evened out, became easy. He forgot where he was, what he was. It became fun. When Klaus opened his eyes, the whole room was already a garden of Eden, and Ben wasn't in it. It felt so good. And then when the man came out of the bathroom, walked over and lay down next to him, Klaus was unable to resist the hand moving across his skin, just as he could not have resisted the gaze moving over him. He was just somewhere far away. Not here. And he liked it so much. Too bad it didn't last long...

******

You know, when you first go to a psychologist at a drug treatment center, he's bound to ask you three questions: how old was your first use, what was the effect of it, and lastly, how long have you been using. Klaus always answered these in different ways, not because he was bad, he just started to forget. Sometimes he was counseled when he was still high, a little, echoing in another world, but still. And he was just making it up. They couldn't check anyway. And they couldn't help either. Who cares. These psychologists never really cared about him. They're here for the practice or the money. It depends on whether it's a public place or not.

But this time was different. From the fact that he was clean this time, since he'd been dripping for three days, to the fact that the psychologist was okay. Nice kid. Just a miracle. For some reason, Klaus couldn't take his eyes off of him. And he felt like he couldn't lie, because it felt like this man could really help him. He wanted to seize this chance, like a lifebelt thrown to a drowning man.

"So, Klaus, feeling better?" Dave was the first to ask, opening his notebook. He never writes everything in it, only what he doesn't want to forget in the future. His memory isn't great after the head injury in high school when he got beaten up in the alley and had his phone taken away. People are so interesting, he thought then. Beating someone up for a phone. They didn't even ask if he'd give it to them for nothing; they jumped right in. But Dave wasn't angry for some reason. Was it painful? Oh, yeah. But not angry. He wondered what could have happened in a man's life that he would go and beat somebody up for a cheap cell phone...

"Depends on what you're asking... Physically. Or spiritually."

"Physically?" Dave looked at Klaus, but he was looking at the wall opposite, where a strange picture was hanging: a bathtub full of water, and in it a crazy weird and funny black cat, looking more like a paint drop from a brush, which is barely hanging on the rim and either falls into the water or on the floor. "Klaus?"

"I've got frostbite on my pinky toe. I can't feel it at all."

"Pinkie toe, okay," Dave wrote it down in his notebook. "And morally, spiritually? I think we have a lot to talk about. You know, since this is my first time working with you, and this is your first time at our Charity Center, I have to ask you some questions..."

"Fifteen." Klaus already knew. And he remembered. He remembered it well today.

"You already know them, apparently. Good. Your first use was at fifteen, and what was the effect?"

Klaus repeated monotonically what he'd said once before, and then Dave, jerking his pen between his handsome slightly rough fingers, asked:

"You said, when you listed what the effect was, that 'then the whole room was covered in butterflies.' And what kind of butterflies are we talking about?"

Klaus shifted his gaze from the sinking, rescued cat to the psychologist and then looked down at his nametag, reading "Dave Katz." It's a beautiful name. So seemingly simple, but strong, cozy. Sighing, and looking away again, Klaus decided to answer, and before he did so, he rummaged a little in his memory:

"Well, obviously not moths," Klaus began. "The whole club was in the prostitutes, not the room. When I took the substance, there were a lot of blue butterflies in the room. So beautiful. Fragile. They fluttered beside me, and at first there weren't many, ten, maybe twenty for the whole room, but then there were so many. Everything was in these butterflies. It was like I was under a rubble of them, they were pressing on my chest, it was hard, and I couldn't breathe because of them... I thought I couldn't breathe because of them. That's what I thought when I was high."

"What was it really like? Why couldn't you breathe?" Dave was quietly glad that he was able to make contact and get Klaus to talk. Not everyone responds so well in the first counseling session. Often people answer every question with "I don't know," and Dave himself ends up not knowing anything about the patient at the end either, and can't do anything to help him. Unfortunately, he is only a psychologist, not a telepath. He has no mind-reading scanner.

Klaus notices again that Dave writes something now and then, but what it is, he can't see. It gets a little uncomfortable that you're being outlined. It's uncomfortable, even. The others didn't.

"I forgot," Klaus smiles. But his lip cracks in pain, and the smile fades. The mood is in the stink garbage can. It was foolish to think that talking to a psychologist at a free dispensary would somehow help. They never help. Only make it worse. After them, opening up even a little bit, just a little bit, Klaus then feels completely drained. It's like he's dead. Like a ghost, walking around and can only rattle his bones to replace the missing chains. It's a different void, but it's not pleasant either.

"I feel like you're lying to me. You remember, you told me so well..."

"If I am lying, so what. I don't know how to talk about the past."

Klaus crossed his arms, but Dave pulled his hand out and clasped it in his hot palms. Dave's hands were as warm as a fireplace, and Klaus's were as icy as iron bars in a graveyard. Klaus looked into Dave's eyes, into those two lovely kind eyes, and his heart clenched. Well, there it was, the thing he'd been asking God for so long, that little girl-notoriety...

"Then let's learn to talk. Tell me, what happened to you that made you come to addiction? What do drugs give you that good stuff that you can't give up, Klaus?"

Klaus hesitated. He hadn't told anyone about it. Not anyone at all. Not even Ben. Ben! His ghost bitch.

"If you just talk through the problem, you might feel better already. So? I'm ready to listen."  
"All right, I'll talk."  
"All right?"  
"Yeah! Stubborn asshole, you asked for it. Don't complain later that I left you psychologically traumatized with my childhood stories..."

Dave let go of his hand, but gently stroked his knuckles first, and Klaus relaxed. So relaxed that his tongue untied itself, and he told everything he could remember about the day he'd first tried drugs. Those luge drugs.

******

/15 days later, afterword/

When Klaus didn't show up for two weeks in the places where he could normally be found, and Diego checked all the morgues, panic began to set in so quickly. His brother simply disappeared from all radar. He wasn't at the dispensaries he might have visited, he wasn't in the clubs, he wasn't on the streets. Diego had even thought that Klaus had been kidnapped, and was about to put out a BOLO on the motherfucker, but he showed up on his own, calling from Diego's undefined number on his work phone at lunchtime. Klaus informed Diego that he was in the rehab, and that he was getting out today, and asked him to pick him up because he had nowhere else to go. Diego was angry. But not mad enough to say no. Clenching his jaws and imagining pushing his junkie brother under the train tracks, Diego said: "I'll be there soon. Wait at the main entrance!" and dropped out.

But when he arrived at the rehab to pick up Klaus, there was no way he could have expected to catch him kissing some guy. Diego didn't know that Klaus was seeing anyone. So, he thought that Klaus was being molested and, quite logically, broke the molested man's nose. Dave, of course, knew that Klaus's brother was no gift, but he didn't think he was that bad. Apparently, everyone in this family needed the help of a psychologist...

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" wailed Klaus, looking at poor Dave trying to stop the nosebleed.

"I can't show weakness," Diego said with the premise that he couldn't react otherwise, softly, if he saw someone pinning his brother down.

"Ahhh... that's it. Is that why you break all my men's noses? Is that why you're afraid to show weakness?" Klaus replied sarcastically, standing one step higher than Diego. Diego clenched his jaws and climbed up the step to Klaus, but Dave, already tasting blood in his mouth, literally, came between the two.

"Does he call all his psychologists his men?" Dave decided to clarify things.

"Psychologists?" Diego interrogated. And then he glanced up and down at the victim of someone else's misunderstanding.

Dave held out his left free hand to Diego for a handshake:

"Dave Katz. The psychologist from," Dave pointed to the dispensary door.

"This rehab," Klaus added grimly.

"You again?" Diego barked, mentally dissolving Dave. But Dave, like protective glass, still continued to stand between that bullet and the robber.

"Comrades, let's cool down a bit," Dave suggested.

"I'm cool."

"And I just don't give a shit," Klaus squatted down and pulled out a cigarette and lighter. Diego rubbed the bridge of his nose and moved to the other end of the wide staircase. Dave cautiously approached him.

"I know, it's complicated."

Diego grinned:

"I didn't pay you for a consultation."

"I'm not speaking as a psychologist right now," Dave tried gently to get out of it. Though he'll always talk like a psychologist. He's been a psychologist since his phone was taken from him on his way home from school.

"What about who?" Diego couldn't stay unruffled around Klaus, and as a result, he began nervously twirling the knife with the ring on the handle on his finger as a habit. Dave knew about this habit. But in life, it was really frightening.

"How..." Dave decided if Klaus's brother wanted to rip him open, that was his fate, there was nothing to be done about it, and he worked up the courage to say, "...his man. I understand that Klaus is harder to deal with than others. But you and I aren't the type to give up so easily, are we?"

"I like this dude," Ben smiles.

"Me too," Klaus answers him, letting the gray smoke out of his mouth. Cigarettes aren't drugs. And maybe he can live a day or two without drugs. What happens next is yet to come. But.

He feels like he can do anything. He doesn't want to give up. He's not the kind of guy who gives up easily, either. Otherwise he'd be dead a hundred times over.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope it wasn't too terrible. Russian metaphors are so hard to translate into English. I had to use a translator to figure it out :c


End file.
